In practice to achieve satisfactory results it is customary to use a shampoo for the cleansing effect on the hair and scalp and then apply a rinse to the wet clean hair to leave the hair in a pleasing and satisfactory, soft, lustrous and easily manageable condition.
Shampoos generally are aqueous compositions with cleansing agents and with other components or additives present for the purpose of improving performance with respect to the cleansing action on the hair and scalp and insofar as possible to leave the hair in the desired, pleasing and satisfactory condition. Generally anionic, including soap, nonionic or amphoteric type detergents or combinations thereof are used as the cleansing agents in shampoos. Effective cleansing action results in the removal to a large degree of the naturally occuring oil and surface components of the hair so that after drying, the hair is left in a condition where it is dull and raspy and may retain static electric charges causing hair flyaway with snarling and tangles making it difficult to comb and becoming generally unmanageable.
Various attempts have been made to improve the conditioning effects of shampoos by the inclusion of various agents such as lanolin in the shampoo. However, in practice to obtain the best results a separate rinse is necessary. Standard creme rinse formulations generally include a long chain cationic surfactant for its antistatic effects. A typical surfactant is stearyl dimethylbenzyl ammonium chloride; however, such cationic compounds cannot be included in the shampoo composition because of the presence of anionic agents which would thereby result in a loss of effectiveness of both components.
Various attempts to include other materials for improving conditioning effects have been made and there are a number of disclosures in the prior art of such attempts to obtain a satisfactory one-step conditioning shampoo composition. However, the results achieved leave much to be desired.
It is, therefore, a primary object of this invention to provide a new and improved one-step conditioning shampoo.
Another object of this invention is to provide a hair shampoo, creme rinse conditioning composition which is capable of achieving both a cleaning and conditioning effect by simply applying the composition by conventional means.